Brussels Briefing
He’s weighting a decision that could make or break our planet according to the online global pressure group, Avaaz.
They are talking about European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, right, and the proposals due out this week setting new carbon emissions and renewable energy targets for 2030.
They advocated sending him a message to resist the old industry lobbyists and make sure the new targets are what mother nature needs.
Whatever he produces will make for a long hot summer as everything is in the mix from pylons to food for biofuels, from nuclear to methane from cattle.
TOP TEN:
It’s Davos time again and according to the World Economic Forum site, just 10 Irish are registered to attend.
They include Taoiseach Enda Kenny, one person from the Department of Finance, one from the Archdiocese of Dublin, two from Goldman Sachs, and one each from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Old Mutual, Jumeriah Group, and the International Council on Mining and Markets.
The three-day business-fest with more than 260 briefings and events does not appear to be offering the newly liberated Ireland a space to display as it did last year.
It’s also trying to lose its über capitalist face with the dangers of too much poverty and not enough gender equality on the agenda.
The European Court of Justice got itself involved in the world of children and collectors with its ruling on the famous Steiff teddy bears, refusing to enter its world-renowned ‘button in the ear’ as a community trademark.
The German soft toy manufacturer, that began more than 110 years ago but hit the big time with its sad-eyed bears, has always identified its product with a little button in its ear.
With mohair, alpaca and woven fur their trademark stands for “something special, so rare in the hectic days of today — craftsmanship and creativity” and sells more than a million a year.
The court ruled that it was just another “shiny or mat round button”.
EU-Russia summits are mercurial affairs — one year up, the other down. Sometimes the press conferences descend into near farce with Moscow decrying the West’s lack of human rights and Brussels upbraiding it for its failures in the area.
But the victory of Russianites in Ukraine that resulted in the trade agreement with the EU being shelved and only half-baked, and Moscow’s positive effect in Syria has called a halt to such playacting, at least for now.
The result is a 2½-hour meeting between EU presidents and president Vladimir Putin on Jan 28. It’s being flagged as an attempt to reset the clock, and the temperature between the two blocs.
Members of the European Parliament were in Dublin last week assessing how democratic the austerity decisions of the troika were.
This week it will be the turn of TDs and other members of EU national parliaments to make their annual trip to Brussels. They will discuss the European Semester and the Fiscal Compact — the rules which eurozone governments must follow in their budgets.
They will also get feedback from MEPs investigating the troika and whose report will be voted on by the parliament next month.
A network of no fewer than 280 burglars was disbanded by French police working with Europol and police from several EU countries.The criminals appeared to be operating a rapid-response network, able to produce stolen cars and faked identity documents very quickly.
They had a fleet of more than 150 cars aiding the sprawling network of criminals, mainly from Albania but recruited by an Albanian and Romanian who were the masterminds of the operation. They specialised in burglaries around Paris and the army of 280 foot soldiers were divided into three-member burglary teams, methodically dispatched in the evenings or at night to cities located close to motorway exits, Europol said.
Ireland banned free plastic bags from shops and some countries followed, but less than a quarter of plastic waste is recycled.
MEPs want to go much further and have asked the EC to bring in proposals to phase out the landfilling of recyclable and recoverable waste by 2020 — and withdraw other plastic waste from use altogether, including the single-use plastic bag.
For those less than green, they had a compelling argument when enforcing EU legislation could save €72bn a year, boost the turnover of EU waste management and recycling firms by €42bn and create over 400,000 jobs by 2020, say MEPs.
The EU’s low-key Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia made a statement about the fact his mobile phone was one of those listened to and spied on by UK/US agencies.
He said he was surprised the conversations they were interested in, as far as he was told, were from his days when he was Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, especially as he was continually giving his opinion in public.
As well as being surprised he was also upset that he had not received any expression of regret from any of the public authorities involved, and because he believed that as “a democrat these activities should be considered illegal”.
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